Coastline at risk from oil spills
A Greater Wellington Regional Council coastal bird survey has highlighted the key risk areas for oil spills around the Wellington region’s coastline.
Greater Wellington senior environmental scientist Roger Uys said the region needs to be prepared for oil spills and part of that includes looking after our precious wildlife.
The survey which was mandated by Maritime New Zealand had Wildlife Management International’s Nikki MacArthur and Samantha Ray walk the region’s 500km coastline to gather information on locations of coastal birds and the population numbers for each species.
“The survey has given us a much better idea of where our high risk areas would be if an oil spill were to happen,” Roger said.
“It has also given us a better insight into how healthy the populations of some of our rare and threatened species are.”
Roger said the survey has improved knowledge of threatened species such as banded dotterel which are nationally vulnerable, and reef heron which are nationally endangered.
“The survey has also given us a much better idea of how we should be responding to development applications around the coast.”
With the help of the Department of Conservation and the harbours team, surveys were also done around the off-shore islands.
“Ka¯ piti Island, Mana Island and Castlepoint showed up as being really important nesting colonies for coastal birds.
“This informs development concepts at regional council.”
Greater Wellington deputy harbour master Patrick Attwood said oil spills occur more often than most people think.
“A lot of the oil that ends up in the harbour comes from the roads.
“Roads straddle most of our coastline and when a vehicle drips fuel or oil it ends up in our storm water systems which link to our harbours.”
With 80 to 90 per cent of reports received on oil spills coming from storm water drains, the survey has shown what sort of wildlife is in each area and where the biggest risks are if there is a significant spill.
The next focus will be on penguin numbers with the latest survey not picking up on penguin numbers.
“We are working with local penguin experts and DoC to try identify where penguins occur around our coast.
“There are potentially 700 to 1000 penguins around our regional coast and we would like to get a better idea of their location and numbers.”